How can I focus on a collapsible action view EditText item in the action bar (when it is expanded) and force the soft keyboard to open?

Question

I am using Jake Wharton\'s excellent ActionBarSherlock library and have a collapsible search action view. I want to popup the soft keyboard when the search action view is ex

Answer 1

For an easier implementation of a collapsible search item in your ActionBar, you may simply use SearchView which is also available in ActionBarSherlock (com.actionbarsherlock.widget.SearchView).

It comes with many handy methods and handles showing/hiding the software keyboard on expanding/collapsing the view automatically. Plus, it is easier to define what to do on submitting the search. Just take a look at all the listeners you can set on that SearchView.

Here's an example:

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    SearchView searchView = new SearchView(this);

    searchView.setQueryHint(getString(R.string.search_hint));
    searchView.setOnQueryTextListener(new OnQueryTextListener() {

        @Override
        public boolean onQueryTextSubmit(String query) {
            // what to do on submit, e.g. start an Activity and pass the query param
            return true;
        }

        @Override
        public boolean onQueryTextChange(String newText) {
            return false;
        }

    });

    menu.add(getString(R.string.search_title))
        .setIcon(R.drawable.ic_action_search)
        .setActionView(searchView)
        .setShowAsAction(MenuItem.SHOW_AS_ACTION_IF_ROOM|MenuItem.SHOW_AS_ACTION_COLLAPSE_ACTION_VIEW);

    // ...place to add other menu items

    return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
}

Another good reason: I had some layout issues on older devices when using a custom EditText as my search view (like you did in your question). The default SearchView solved all these issues and saved me many lines of code.